The picture here is of my oldest son, Don. His mother is the former Sharron Ann Martin. Some of you know our story and some don't, I think I will leave it at that. The only reason for his picture is that I am so proud of him. He has been a paratrooper, a college wide receiver, (fast for a white boy is how he was once described) an officer in a bank and now a Youth Pastor. Don, and all my children, are so much better people than their dad. I have told them how much I love and respect them, but I haven't told them often enough. Don is now a grandfather, earlier I posted a picture of the new baby. Let's see, if my son is a grandfather, that makes me a...great-grandfather. Time marches on...hopefully.
Man doesn't everybody wish that had been a Miami Hurricane, or better yet, a Florida State Seminole, football player with his hands inside of the others player's helmet trying to poke him in the eye? Can you imagine how righteously indignant Gator Nation would have been? At the very least we would have been calling for a public flogging. Unfortunately, this time it was it was our guy.
In the history of the University of Florida, Brandon Spikes has done more for our football program than all but a handful of players. In this incident, he was wrong and there is just no way to justify what he did. However, I am not naive enough to believe that this type of behavior is unusual in football, clearly it is not. Number 51, Spikes, is the middle linebacker and the team enforcer. The play before this happened, the same Georgia back had punched Joe Haden (number 5) in the face. Also earlier in the game a player put his hands under Brandon's helmet, poked him in his eyes and then ripped his helmet off. While his helmet was off, another Bulldog player butted him in the face with his helmet. I was at the game and there was a lot of trash talk and shoving. Both sides were ready to fight and several times it could have exploded into a bench clearing brawl.
Football is an emotional game played by strong, fast, aggressive young men. Some times tempers get out of hand, this time it was one of us. You know what, as far as I am concerned, Brandon Spikes is still a great Gator. He made a mistake but it does not overshadow his tremendous career and contributions. How does the song go? "We are the boys from old Florida, in all kinds of weather, we all stick together....for F-L-O-R-I-D-A."
As far as our opponent from Athens goes, it is no longer a traditional rivalry. We have won seventeen games out of the past twenty contests. That, my friends, is the definition of domination. So the question for the Dawgs is this; Who is your Daddy?
No comments:
Post a Comment